Spindle apparatus

Abstract

A rod body 30 is formed of magnetostrictive material and includes one end portion 30 fixed, and a piston 35 is fixed to the other end portion 30b of the rod body 30. The piston 35 is slidably disposed within a cylinder 36 in which there is formed a pump chamber 37. A suction port 39 for sucking lubricating oil into the pump chamber 37 is formed in the cylinder 36, while a suction valve 40 for preventing the lubricating oil from flowing out from the suction port 39 is disposed in the suction port 39. In the cylinder 36, there is disposed a nozzle 20 which communicates with the pump chamber 37 and has a sectional area smaller than the lubricating oil passage sectional area of the suction valve 40. There is disposed a coil 43 outside the rod body 30 and, to the coil 43, there is connected a control device 6 for controlling the supply of a current to be supplied to the coil 43.

Description

[0001] This application is a Continuation-in-Part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 522,909, filed on Mar. 10, 2001.[0002] The present intention relates to a lubricating device which discharges lubricating oil to a spindle apparatus provided in various high-speed rotary machines such as a machine tool and, especially, to the bearing of the spindle.DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART[0003] Conventionally, in lubricating the bearing of a high-speed rotary spindle, normally, there are used lubricating devices of various types such as an oil mist type, an oil-air type, and a jet type.[0004] The lubricating device of an oil mist type comprises an oil tank, a pump, a plunger, a pressure divider, compressed air, an electromagnetic valve, and a nozzle; and, in this device, lubricating oil is turned into a fine mist-like form, it is delivered through an air pipe using the compressed air, and it is jetted out to the interior portion of the bearing.[0005] The lubricating device of an oil-air t...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0029] According to the above structure, since the discharge speed of the lubricating oil to be discharged from the nozzle is high, that is, 10 m / sec-100 m / sec., the lubricating oil can be supplied to the interior portion of the bearing positively without being influenced by an air curtain which can occur in the high-speed rotation. Also, because the discharge quantity of the lubricating oil is fine, that is, in the range of 0.0005 ml / shot-0.01 ml / shot, an increase in the temperatures of the bearings can be controlled down to a low level. Further, since there are not used attendant devices including a high-pressure pump such as a jet type, there is eliminated an increase in drag resistance which could be caused due to an increase in the quantity of the oil supplied to the bearings, so that, as a motor for driving the spindle, there can be used a motor which is inexpensive and compact.

[0110] Also, in case where a cut-out groove for arrangement of the pipe is formed in the insertion portion of the second inner housing, when the first housing is slid in the axial direction, the pipe can be stored in the cut-out groove, so that the pipe can be inserted smoothly.

Problems solved by technology

Firstly, in the lubricating device of an oil mist type, due to use of the compressed air, not only there arises a noise problem but also the mist-like lubricating oil scatters into the air to worsen an operation environment. Also, because of the scattering of the mist-like lubricating oil into the air, the quantity of lubricating oil to be supplied to the interior portion of the bearing is indefinite. Especially, in case where the bearing is rotated at a high speed, due to the effect of an air curtain, when dm.multidot.N is equal to or larger than 2000000 (dm expresses the pitch circle diameter of the bearing (mm), and N expresses the rotation speed (min.sup.-1) of the bearing), the lubricating oil can be little supplied to the interior portion of the bearing, thereby raising a fear that the bearing can cause seizure.

In the lubricating device of an oil-air type, similarly to the above-mentioned oil mist type lubricating device, since the compressed air is used, not only there arises a noise problem but also the mist-like lubricating oil scatters into the air to thereby worsen the operation environment.

Therefore, similarly, the lubricating oil can be little supplied to the interior portion of the bearing, thereby raising a fear that the bearing can cause seizure.

Also, in the lubricating device of an oil-air type, because it is difficult to supply a fine amount of lubricating oil continuously and stably, the lubricating oil must be supplied intermittently and thus the lubricating oil is supplied at a given quantity (normally, in the range of 0.01-0.03 ml) every given interval time (normally, in the rage of 8-16 min.) into the air pipe.

Therefore, since the quantity of lubricating oil to be supplied to the interior portion of the bearing varies every given time, the lubricating condition of the interior portion of the bearing varies all the time and, especially, just after the lubricating oil is supplied, a large quantity of lubricating oil enters the interior portion of the bearing, thereby causing a phenomenon that the torque of the bearing and the temperature of the bearing can vary.

There is a fear that this phenomenon can have ill effects on the working precision of a machine tool.

On the other hand, in a lubricating device of a jet type, when compared with the above lubricating devices of oil mist and oil-air types, there is little found the effect of the above-mentioned air curtain but, not only because there is required an attendant device such as a high-pressure pump but also because the quantity of lubricating oil to be supplied to the bearing increases to thereby increase drag resistance, there is necessary a large motor which is used to drive the spindle, which results in the increased cost.

However, in the above-mentioned pump using a giant magnetostrictive material or flow control valve, there are found the following problems.

The fine fixed quantity liquid supply device disclosed in Japanese Patent Examined Publication No. 2-15003 of Heisei has not solved yet a drawback caused by delivering the lubricant to the nozzle using the high-pressure air.

As a result of this, a device using such coil increases in size.

However, in the conventional oil-air lubricating method, there are dimensional limits, for example, the sizes of sealing parts such as an O-ring and the size of a return spring, which makes it difficult to reduce the diameter and stroke of the piston.

For this reason, it has been believed difficult to discharge a quantity of less than 0.01 ml of lubricating oil.

15 min., thereby raising a problem that the temperature of the constantly rotating bearing can pulsate at the oil shot intervals.

This raises a problem even in the case of a spindle which does not rotate at a very high speed, that is, when the product (dm.multidot.N) of the shaft diameter [mm] and the shaft rotation speed [min.sup.-1] is 1500000 or less.

However, in the case of a fine quantity of lubricating oil being supplied, in a pipe arrangement structure using such O-rings 104, when the lubricating oil is jetted out, the volume of the interior portion of the pipe passage is caused to vary due to the elastic deformation of the O-rings 904, which makes it impossible to supply a given quantity of lubricating oil.

Moreover, since compressed air supplied by a compressor is not used as in the lubricating device of an oil mist system or an oil-air system, the noise level is low and the oil mist can be little produced.

On the other hand, in case where the current value measured at the time when a certain time has passed after the start of the supply of the current is smaller than the design value, that is, in case where the time required for the current to increase up to a certain current value is longer than the design value, it can be judged that an abnormal condition such as lubricant leakage has occurred.

That is, in case where the oil discharge quantity is very small, it is difficult to deflate the air within the pipe only by repeating normal oil dischargings.

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